We all know the headline: Amazon released the Kindle in 2007 and changed reading forever. But what about the decades of work that made the Kindle possible? Marie Lebert's Una historia del eBook digs into that hidden history. It starts not in a corporate lab, but with a community of idealists. In the early 1970s, a man named Michael Hart launched Project Gutenberg with a wild goal: to put 10,000 books online for free. The first book was the U.S. Declaration of Independence, typed painstakingly into a mainframe computer.

The Story

Lebert guides us through a global, grassroots movement. She shows us volunteers around the world, from the United States to Australia, manually typing and proofreading classics to create the first digital library. The story then follows the tech evolution: the early e-reader devices that failed in the market, the rise of the personal computer and the web, and the format wars (remember trying to read a .lit file?). It's a chain reaction of passion meeting technology. The book covers the legal battles over digital rights, the fears of publishers, and the eventual moment when the pieces—affordable screens, storage, and a big distributor—finally clicked together.

Why You Should Read It

What I loved most was realizing that the eBook was built more by readers and librarians than by tech CEOs. This history is human. It's about people who loved books so much they wanted to set them free. Lebert doesn't get bogged down in technical jargon. Instead, she focuses on the vision: the belief that knowledge should be accessible to everyone. Reading this made me look at my own e-reader differently. It's not just a gadget; it's the endpoint of a fifty-year collective effort. It’s a story of stubborn optimism that feels especially relevant today.

Final Verdict

Perfect for curious readers who enjoy non-fiction that reads like an origin story. If you've ever downloaded a free classic from Project Gutenberg, wondered about the tech behind your library's app, or just love a good underdog tale about an idea that wouldn't die, this book is for you. It's not a dry tech manual; it's the biography of the book's digital soul. You'll finish it with a new appreciation for every page—whether it's made of pixels or paper.